Hampton Will Share Namesake Sub With Others

February 07, 1989|By CHARLES H. BOGINO Staff Writer

The Navy will name one of its next Los Angeles-class submarines the USS Hampton, but the local city will have to share the honor with three other cities in the United States, the Navy announced Monday.

The submarine will honor cities in Virginia, South Carolina, New Hampshire and Iowa, said Lt. Jim Wood, a Navy spokesman at the Pentagon.

That decision has upset at least one local man who had pushed for a ship named after his hometown.

"Hopefully, it can be identified with the Virginia Hampton rather than the one in South Carolina, New Hampshire or wherever else," said Harrol A. Brauer Jr., who was on a committee that sought congressional and Navy support for the idea.

But sharing the honor with other cities thousands of miles away doesn't seem to bother local officials.

"We're just very glad that it is finally going to happen," Hampton City Manager Robert O'Neill said.

The city here on the Peninsula has sought the recognition of having a ship named after it since the Navy decided in 1982 to name one of its submarines the USS Newport News. Some of the city's residents had hoped that naming a sub after the city would have coincided in 1985 with the 375th anniversary of the settlement of Hampton, Brauer said.

Brauer credited Rep. Herbert Bateman, R-1st, with keeping

the idea in front of the Navy. Brauer said he had heard former Navy Secretary John F. Lehman Jr. was not interested in the idea. Lehman left the post in April 1987 and was replaced by James Webb. The current Navy secretary, William L. Ball, took office last March.

In a statement issued from his office Monday, Bateman said he was delighted the Navy chose to name the submarine after the city of Hampton.

"I have long urged the Navy to give this recognition to the city of Hampton," the statement said.

Larry Hart, Bateman's press aide, acknowledged that the district will be sharing the name.

"There are four cities named Hampton," Hart said. "So technically it is not necessarily named after Hampton, Va."

The other cities sharing the name are the county seat of Hampton County, S.C., which has a population of 19,000, and the Atlantic coastal township of Hampton, N.H., with about 10,000 people. The county seat of Franklin County, Iowa, also shares the name.

The news was unexpected, said Ken Herwig, the city clerk in Hampton, Iowa, a town of 4,630.

"That's nice," he said.

Would the city be planning a celebration to coincide with the boat's commissioning?

"I don't know," he said. "We'll have to think about it."

A spokesman for the Republican congressman who represents the Iowa farming community said the name was an honor for the landlocked district.

"It's not as thrilling as get ting a new farm bill," said Rich Myers, a spokesman for Rep. Fred Grandy. "But it's a thrill in its own small way. We're always looking for as much recognition as possible."

The Navy names its Los Angeles-class submarines after cities. Although tradition used to dictate that ships named for cities usually meant a port where the Navy had a base, the practice has been expanded to include inland cities such as Cincinnati and Oklahoma City.

The Hampton, currently labeled SSN-767, is being built by Newport News Shipbuilding and is scheduled for launch in May 1991. The Navy estimated the boat will be delivered in March 1994.

According to the Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, an official Navy publication, the Navy has had three other ships named Hampton.

The Navy took the last ship to bear the name Hampton out of service and sold it in 1959. It had been an unnamed anti-submarine warfare ship during World War II. After it was named Hampton in 1956, it operated as a training vessel until the Navy struck it from its rolls.

The first ship called Hampton was a World War I-era wooden tugboat originally built in 1905 and acquired by the Navy in 1918. After the war, it was returned to its original owner.

The third Hampton was called such in honor of the South Carolina city. It was a World War II troop transport ship, sold in 1947 and renamed "P & T Explorer" by its private owners.